Dr. Mark Schuler

About Dr. Mark Schuler

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Posts by Dr. Mark Schuler:

Day 8 of the 2016 Season

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Day 8 saw both teams opening new areas in the North Building.  With the Sea of Galilee as a backdrop, it is a most beautiful place to work.

team Sea

Work on the eastern section of the Hours of Tyche and Cordo 4 North is now complete. We present the final model here:

Eastern storage room & Cardo 4N on 12 July 2016
by Dr. Mark Schuler
on Sketchfab

I close with a bit of a surprise. We removed a blockage in Cardo 3 North near the south entrance to the North Building. Much to our surprise, we found a blocked doorway to the House of Tyche with a decorated lintel still in situ and decorated door jambs.  The door hails from early in the history of the house when Cardo 3 North dropped off down toward the north wall of the city. The stone work is worn but quite impressive.

blocked doorway

Day 6 of the 2016 season

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At dawn on the first day of the week, the Concordia team was already at work.

At dawn...

I wonder if anyone thought of the significance, as the sun rose.

We finished work on the eastern storage room.  While doing so, Dr. Chambers recovered an oil lamp,

lamp

and Emily found a coin during the sifting process.

coin

The next model we will post from this area will be the final clean model.

On the north side of the dig, the team is approaching the floor.  They continue to recover many mosaic clusters from the collapsed upper floor. But the clusters are so fragmentary that they only hint at what was above.

DP44 and DP45 on 10 July 2016
by Dr. Mark Schuler
on Sketchfab

Alphabet soup…

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As we have attempted to interpret the material remains from the northeast insula, we have relied on small finds, architecture, inter-connectivity of structures, and inscriptions. What we have lacked is an inscription from the church complex to help us in our understanding. Is the complex a monastery? Who is the elderly woman in the revered tomb?

This week while working on the northerly building, we began to recover  clusters of tesserae that apparently were part of the mosaic floor on an upper level of the building.  The clusters are relatively small but quite tantalizing.

 

IMG_4579sm

This cluster has a finely formed epsilon followed by a space and then the beginning of a lambda or an upsilon.

IMG_4580sm

I am making a bit of a guess on this one, but I think it may be a theta.

IMG_4581sm

A line begins with an epsilon. The next line begins with a tau. I assume that the black line to the left is a border.

IMG_4582sm

I am more confident that this letter is a theta. But I could be wrong.

IMG_4583am

Another guess . . . the bottom portion of an omega, or the top of an upsilon, if flipped over.

We have some additional pieces with colors and hope to recover more tomorrow. Alphabet soup, anyone?

 

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Day 5 of the 2016 Season

The Concordia team finished the first week of the 2016 season have made excellent progress in both the eastern and northern zones. In the east, the team almost completed the storage room next to the eastern wall of the House of Tyche. Careful work led to the recovery of two coins (so far) near the floor.

DR40 and DQ40 on 07 July 2016
by Dr. Mark Schuler
on Sketchfab

In the northern zone, we can now say that the first floor of the north building had a stone floor. However, we are recovering many mosaic clusters from about thirty cm above the floor, suggesting a collapse of a mosaic from a second floor.

DP44 and DP45 on 07 July 2016
by Dr. Mark Schuler
on Sketchfab

We close this note with a photo of Ben holding the coin he found in the eastern zone.

Ben with a coin
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